[1] The buses are used to transport employees from their homes in San Francisco and Oakland to corporate campuses in Silicon Valley, about 40 miles (64 km) south.

[8] As a net gain, busing ensured employees had a convenient way to commute to work while allowing for tech workers to live outside of Silicon Valley.

According to a 2012 report by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), there were approximately 6,500 tech commuters who used shuttle buses to take them from their respective homes to work locations outside the city.

Having different transport systems attempting to use the same areas at each stop in an uncoordinated fashion brought about unnecessary traffic congestion, for which the City of San Francisco was not compensated.

[14][15] An internal city report stated:Prior to August 2014, San Francisco did not regulate or collect fees from commuter shuttles.

The lack of rules for where and when loading and unloading were permitted resulted in confusion for shuttle operators and neighbors, inconsistent enforcement, and real and perceived conflicts with other transportation modes.

[16]The protests started on December 9, 2013, when activists from a group called Heart of the City blocked and entered a double-decker bus used by Google at 24th Street and Valencia in San Francisco's Mission District.

[24] In one incident on April 2, 2014, a protester climbed to the roof of a Yahoo bus close by Bay Area Rapid Transit's MacArthur station in Oakland, and vomited on the windshield.

In these cases, San Francisco Police Department officers are trained to de-escalate the situation by using other, non-confrontational means, such as communicating with non-compliant subjects.

[29][4] In the meantime, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency was asked by the Board of Supervisors to commission a panel to begin gathering information on a long-term solution.

[30] On March 31, 2014, tech-advocacy group sf.citi—led by Ron Conway, angel investor in Google and other tech companies—released a statement of support for SFMTA's pilot program.